As we plow through the internet looking, searching, researching, or just being nosey, we are able to find all kinds of information. Some of it good and some not so good, but the info is out there. Cyberspace is crazy place. There are online resources for just about anything you are looking for. Even in our Christian walk, there are many tools that are valuable. Folks have done years and years of research and posted it up free of charge to equip the body of Christ and help us in our daily walk. We at EX Ministries have done the same, by offering full web access to most of our materials free of charge and giving you blogs and daily words as well, without any kind of partnership involved. We are not knocking partnerships, but we do feel that some stuff ought to just be free.
But then, there is the dark side of the net. The perverted side that seeks to suck people into an underground movement that will ultimately destroy their faith in God and their faith in God's system. I'm not talking about porn sites or myspace. I'm not talking about adult chat rooms or webcams. I'm talking about church folks being exposed before the world by so called believers! I'm talking about folks outing Pastors, Ministers, Ministries, and Leaders by way of blogs, emails, and gossipy attachments. It's gotten to the point where lay people are many times rushing to their email every morning to see what preacher got caught with his pants down, or what Gospel artist is gay, or whatever. Now, I know there are folks reading this and saying, "how can G. Craige Lewis say this and he is always outing folks!" Well, anyone that says that, has not read what I have written nor watched the videos that I have produced. They have just "heard" about them after folks have put their own spin on it. If you know EX Ministries and what I preach, you know that I do call names and mention things people do, but only after they have exposed it to the public. Only after it's in the news, on tv, or something they put out for the world to see. But we do not out folks personal lifestyles and issues on our platform because God forbids that.
You see, God never intended for his people to become celebrities and seek after fame. There is a price to pay for fame and most famous church folks are finding out the hard way that the price is expensive . When you are a celebrity, your career, fame, money, and the like are not controlled by God, but by public opinion. When the public loves you, you are rich, but when they have finished enjoying you or finished with you period, you are poor. This is why so many of our prominent television church leaders and entertainers are on drugs, have sexual addictions, alternative lifestyles, etc., because they cannot deal with the fact that one day, they may no longer be famous and may resort to coming up with ways to stay in the public's view. Jesus avoided this by telling people to not lift him up or glorify him in the flesh, but rather keep quiet about the things he was doing that they deemed great. (Luke 8:56) Jesus never considered his workings as great, but rather said he was only mimicking what God was doing in heaven. (Luke 18:19) This was to avoid fame and the consequences of being steered by public opinion.
Nowadays, you can log on to google and type in a name and get all kinds of info, gossip, lies, slander, and even hard core truth without responsibility. Who got caught with who, who is sleeping with who, who is doing this and that. Could be true, could be a lie, but whichever it is, it is a shame before God for this kind of information to be given without responsibility or the clergy actually dealing with it first. Let me explain.
God has a plan for his prophets, and ministers exposure if they fall into sin. You see, God has men set up in a 5 fold ministry to hold each leader accountable for his actions. Men that are of the cloth so to speak, are apart of God's system of checks and balances. But the reason all these things are happening now is because men have surrounded themselves with evil men that will not hold them accountable. They are super apostles and untouchable by the clergy. Men that have become bigger than life cannot be subject to any authority because they have chosen to put men around them that covet their money and power. And by keeping each other's immoral indiscretions between each other silent, they each have something on the other and can hold it against the other if they decide to tell on them. This is mafia style behavior, but it is common among celebrity church leaders because they cannot afford to let anyone get close enough to see their wickedness without having some wickedness to throw around on them if they tell. So, there is no headship or accountability when the people you have surrounded yourself are wicked and hiding their own sin. They will serve you and do whatever you want because they want to escape judgment too! This is the dilemma and why the black church especially, is suffering from the lack of true revival, because men are blocking the move of God by being immoral and surrounding themselves with immoral men that won't judge their actions. In these cases, especially to those that have been hurt by these folks, you should just sit back and turn the hour glass over. In a matter of time God is gonna get them for you and you don't have to take action outside of God's system to do it. I"m not saying you shouldn't go to someone about being hurt by clergy (you should definitely go to leadership), but if they don't do anything, the web is not the place for it. When they won't hear the church, the secular media is waiting to judge them!
God is allowing the very machine that made them famous to turn on them and expose them before the world. The very media many of them sold their souls to for fame has turned on them and is publishing their private garbage to out them. This is terrible for the body of Christ and our witness to the world. By the world probing our leaderships spending habits, sexual appetites, and lack of integrity, they are finding no differences in our leaders and their political leaders. This is silencing the voice of the true God to the world and causing them to seek after other gods and other religion's leaders because the Christians leaders are falling. This is the spirit of antichrist at its best; Make them all rich and famous, lift them up above everyone, attach countless ministries to them and let them be their "coverings," then snatch the cover off of them all!!! You bust out the leaders for being immoral and the churches under them die because their pastors should have seen this coming and because of their lack of leadership, discernment, and protection, they lose their churches too. After all, who wants to be under a person that was chasing after an immoral platform? The church hemorrhages and almost dies and God's small remnant has to rebuild it. This is a dreadful day people of God, but this is our present day reality.
The bible deals with things differently and rumors, gossip, slander, and the like should be dealt with inside the body of Christ, and never exposed to the world. The bible shows us how to deal with these things in a manner where the church stays responsible and the world keeps out of it so they will not be dismayed or lose their faith in the power and authority of God's people. But these bigger than the church leaders have erased the lines that separated the church from the world and now the world knows all our business! Paul, in the bible dealt with things this way to keep the church intact and the world at bay:
When there was a rumor going around in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul said he judged it for the church. He told the members of the church that he had "already" judged the common report, or rumor that was going around and he dealt with it from a leadership perspective. He told them, after he had judged the situation, to put the person out. He didn't pass it around the room and ask their opinions about it. They were already talking about it and it was made common in the church, so he dealt with it from a leadership standpoint. The word even tells us that if we find our brother in a sin, we should go to them and restore them, not spread it around. Sure we talk and confide in those that are in leadership or those that are our colleagues. But we don't spread it around the net or lend our websites and comment pages to it before the world. That is not God's way. We must stick to God's plan.
Now, when Peter got out of line in his doctrine and behavior as a leader, Paul rebuked him before everyone. Why? Because what he was doing was before everyone. He was bending the rules and twisting his doctrine to suit his desires and actions and everyone was privy to it. So, since it was going on in the public's view, he was rebuked openly in the public's view so that everyone could see he was in error and if anyone was deceived by it, they could be restored by knowing the truth about it. This is God's way of handling open rebuke. When people preach, teach, or allow certain things to go on publicly that are not lining up with scripture, then it should be made public by those that are chosen by God to deal with it. But when a person is caught up in a private issue or sin, they should be dealt with privately by those in leadership and if they refuse to hear and repent, then it should be made public according to the Word of God.
Don't let blogs, emails, chats, etc, deceive you. God is not please with the way things are looking for the church. We have so many folks falling right now, we don't have to assist it. God is bringing folks down and using the secular media that they crave to do it. You don't have to spread anything around but rather pray for these folks that they will hear the prophets that are calling on them to repent. If they refuse, they will pay the price of fame. You don't have to take a secret video around to expose them, you don't have to post their personal info on youtube or write a book against them, and you don't have to send it around via email. All we as the church have to do is sit back and watch the great falling away passover! If you don't have the blood of the Lamb covering your house, you will be affected by it. God is rooting out the darkness before his return and he wants us that are of him to behave according to scripture in the way we handle things. Let's stop the gossip via the web and start praying for mercy. You see, when these great pompous leaders fall, and they shall, it's not a victory for any of us in the household of faith, but only a fearful day of judgement for everyone. We should all be on our knees and faces before God lest we be exposed or found doing something that is not Godly. Pray for our church people. Every email you see, every blog you read, and every video clip you watch that is exposing the church, is a fierce blow to the Kingdom of God. And though leaders that are corrupt and refuse to repent should be punished and exposed, there is a biblical way to do it so the loss in the body is minimized.
Galatians 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
1Timothy 5:19 Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.
Galatians 2:14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
1Timothy 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
2 Timothy 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
1Corinthians 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. ...............For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, n heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Hebrews 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
Ephesians 4:25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.
In His Name,
G. Craige Lewis
